Darkies' Horses

In a ring at Utica, Mich. last week, Joe Louis put Bing Crosby through a few paces. Bing Crosby is a five-gaited saddle horse and Joe Louis was riding him in the highest-toned Negro horse show ever held in the U. S.

Negro horse shows are not new, particularly in the South. Most famed is the annual, two-day jamboree at Orange, Va., a few miles from the farm of Du Pont Heiress Mrs. Randolph Scott. Accompanied by fortune telling, dancing and sideshows, the horses (mostly nags borrowed from white employers) are a minor attraction, often compete against mules. Prizes are bushels of oats, hand-me-down automobiles, whatever the committee can round up. Usually there is no attempt to put on dog.

But Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis, basking in his prize-ring fame, has given his race big ideas. When the idol of the Negroes, who has grossed well over a million dollars in the past three years, took up riding-in-the-park as a pastime, the colored upper crust of Detroit. Chicago and Cleveland followed suit, bought expensive saddle horses. Last week Joe Louis persuaded his wealthy friends to ship their horses to Detroit. Except for the fact that there were only six events and 16 horses (two of them Bing Crosby and McDonald's Choice, belonging to Sponsor Louis), the Utica Riding Club Horse Show was not far different from the flashy horse shows it tried to ape. No. 1 judge of the show, W. C. Overton, whose regular job is supervising the paddock at the Detroit racetrack, thought Joe Louis' form far inferior in the show ring to the prize ring, awarded him a third-place yellow ribbon in the five-gaited saddle class.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.